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Jimmy Carter tells Paula Deen: 'Make apologies'

Former President Jimmy Carter has some advice for Paula Deen, the celebrity chef who has been losing business deals amid the fallout from her use of racial slurs. "My heart goes out to her but there's no

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Former president Jimmy Carter has some advice for Paula Deen, the celebrity chef who has been losing business deals amid the fallout from her use of racial slurs.

"My heart goes out to her, but there's no condoning the use of a word that abuses other people," Carter said in an interview with CNN. "I've known Paula Deen quite well for a long period of time. I advised her to let the dust settle and make apologies."

Carter suggested some of the "oppressed and poverty-stricken" people that Deen has helped through programs in Savannah should speak out about her work in the community, as a way to show how "she has changed in her relationship with African-American people" over the years.

Sears and Walgreens are among the latest companies to distance themselves from Deen, who made an emotional appeal on NBC's Today show this week. During a deposition for a lawsuit by a former employee, Deen admitted to using racial epithets and tolerating racial jokes.

Carter told CNN that Deen was "maybe excessively honest" in saying that she used the n-word.

"I think she has been punished, perhaps overly severely, for her honesty in admitting it and for the use of the word in the distant past. She's apologized profusely," he said.

In her first interview since admitting to using racial slurs in a deposition, Paula Deen cried and begged for forgiveness on NBC's 'Today.'
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